Falling
by TellNearaToWrite
Summary: Life is like falling; no control, but no regrets. a practice in character writing NaruSasu yaoi, people, yaoi
1. Sasuke

_Hey there! It's been a little while since I've posted something. Anyway . . . _

_For Writers Workshop (school club), we were asked to do a little thing about keeping a character, well, in character. Relatively. So here was my try . . . _

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I was quiet and watched the world with bitter eyes. I hated the idea of becoming close to anyone; there was no controlling _others_. All you had the power to control in the world was yourself, and even then you could have moments in which you had no control.

I found a certain amount of control in aspects of life. For instance, I could control the wiles of all the silly little girls. That was a certainty, but I disliked the idea that that was my only current true power over the behaviour of others.

I spent my time dark and angry, and found myself interrupted by one thing and one thing only. This thing came in the form of one sunny, golden individual. He was boisterous and obnoxious, and any other –ous's that you could discern, and had this innate ability to anger me greatly.

I behaved according to my feelings, and did my best to insult him and provoke him at all turns. I tried my best to make it less than obvious, but he always fell for it and he always fought with me. I reveled in the idea that if he hated me, he wouldn't try to affect me.

He had a true ability, there. He could manipulate other people. He could make them happy, he could anger them, he could make them laugh, and he could make them respect him.

I found that I feared him, in some respect, because of all of this. He made people _feel_, and I didn't want to feel, not now, not ever again. I couldn't afford fear, which meant I couldn't afford feelings and friends, and all of the things tied up with those things.

I found no rationality for _friends_. I had no comprehension of the term, as I had never really been taught it fully. A friend is a person who is attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. I was stricken with curiosity one day and discovered that that was the actual definition of the word. It meant nothing in the furthering of myself, and therefore, I had no use for it.

I lived only for certain things. Control. Power. I couldn't help myself. That was what I was instructed to learn. That is what I want to learn. That is what I will learn.

That ray of sunshine questions this. He questions me, my motives. He simply asks _why?_ He has no regard for me, what I want to tell, what I won't tell. He just wants to know why.

Having no regard for me is the same as having no personal regard, isn't it? That means he isn't anything like a friend, by definition. At least, not to me.

I don't know why I would do it. Why would I save someone who, by definition, was not my friend? I can't think of it rationally; it isn't a rational thing.

I had no one but the pestering girls who all claimed me as their own; he had _friends_, whatever that meant to him. Friends are not rational, which invalidates my whole reasoning. So that meant that I had no reason for my actions. No reason meant no control, no power, and that in itself was unacceptable.

My actions were spurred by something I didn't know, and this spurred him to question me more. _Why? Why? Why?_

I had no answer for myself, so I had no answer for him. Not that I wanted to answer him. My only reaction was to try to distance myself from him. I hated him more, I fought with him more. I resented myself for my lapse of control.

I hid my resentment behind cuts and scars, ones hidden and ones visible. Some I wanted people to see. I received them in fights, therefore they meant something; I was learning, gaining the power I so wanted. Others I didn't want people to see. They couldn't be battle wounds, they were weakness; small pricks that let forth my cowardly blood. One day, I knew I'd be able to rid myself of my cowardice. That would be when I finally had everything I needed. No longer would I have room in my life for cowardice; I would be brave. I would be strong.

He watched me, still sunny, still ever curious. He fought back, but it was muted. He said _I know what's wrong with you _with his eyes, trying to be profoundly understanding, profoundly accepting, without really understanding or even knowing what he should be accepting. He was profoundly stupid, and no number of friends could change that.

Coming home worn and bloodied, he stopped me with his ever emotional eyes. _Why do you do that?_

I was confused and exhausted and bitterly angry. I had reason for everything I did, and I had no reason to tell him why I did anything. So I ignored him, continuing upon my bitter path.

He stopped me with a single, low blow, felled me and trapped me. He stared unceasingly, angrily caring.

I found I couldn't lie. Not to _that_. That emotion. I was a coward, and now he knew. Now he was better and knew.

We fought bitterly after that, in another time and place, for new reasons. I didn't fear him; I hated him in such a way that I couldn't explain. He took from me my ability to have my own power, so I took it from elsewhere. He didn't like that, and I could never explain that.

I fought him in the rain with true anger. I loathed him with a killing intent, up to the end. And then I couldn't kill him. Not him; he showed me everything that I couldn't show to anyone.

He laid motionless where he'd fallen, and I stood in silent agony. _How can you try . . . Why?_ I felt true confusion and something that I wanted to remain nameless. But I knew what it was, and therefore I knew it was something rational. Maybe not reasonable, but rational. Sorrow. How I could feel sorrow, I didn't know.

On my knees in my weakness, I could do nothing but stare at that familiar, golden being. I didn't know what to feel and what to not feel, so I felt it all. The neat little emotional bundles I hid away and hated poured out in a few spare moments in the rain. _I'm sorry._

I couldn't stomach the thought of seeing him. I wanted to leave, and now I had reason. If he asked, I would tell him. I knew he never would ask why, but I still would tell him some day.

That was something I wasn't familiar with. The idea of _some day_. The idea that I intended to see him again. I couldn't and yet I _wanted_ to. For the first time, in the dark I lived and breathed, the dark now covered in filth and self-loathing.

I shuddered at dead fingers against my skin, slithering tongues and slippery snakes, and longed for golden sunshine. This was against my better judgment, wanting what I'd once wanted to kill, but that loathsome beacon was more desirable than death and that which I lived with in the dark.

I emerged from the dark after spending my entire life there. I blinked blindly in the radiant light of life, utterly changed, unquestionably different. I was a creature of the moon, the goddess of darkness, striving to survive in the sun, the god of light. I was feeble beyond belief and immensely strong, completely different than before, but nevertheless the same _person_.

My golden sunray found me, surprising himself and myself with the discovery. He was older, wiser, warier. He saw me as the waifish specter I'd become, deceptive to the eye, but not to his.

He seemed confused and approached me with questions in his eyes. _Why?_ he asked, stirring old feelings I'd long since locked away. _Why do I **pity** you?_

I came close to devastation. That in itself was something I'd felt once before, before my darkness, in a faraway time when I used to feel. I was empty save my longing for this sunshine, and those words were a crushing blow.

Pity was something I hated; I made myself who I was, and that should draw no pity from others. My sunshine knew all emotions, though, and I knew only a few, so if he believed one should feel pity, then it was true. I was truly pitiful.

My agreement halted him in surprise. He gathered me close and I stayed, not quite strong enough to fight him. Even if I had been, I would have stayed as I was; docile as a kitten, for I was finally near the radiant creature I'd so longed to be near. He clung to his tenacious hold, concern and fear and something that made him glow happily flashing across his being in moments.

Thus, he reintegrated me. To his life, to my life. Not my old life. A new one I was beginning, a _normal_ one not overshadowed by bitterness and darkness. He watched me proudly, not ashamed, not angry, rarely pitying, glowing with something I couldn't put a name to months after I'd been revived.

There came a time and place to name this feeling. He came to me once, to bid me farewell until morning. I sat upon my bed, comfortable in the darkness, and gave him a tiny, coy smile, something I rarely gave anyone. He sighed then and approached me, kneeling on the bed in front of me. _I . . . _

I shook my head of the idea, blearily confused and now wary. A light pressure against my body, my chest, and I fell back upon my pillows and blankets. _I . . ._

I blocked the words and was caught in a flurry of motion set forth to bare our bodies in the darkness. Calloused hands softly touched my trembling sides, lighting in me a newfound fear of the power my sunshine held. I shivered and pleaded and cried out against him. I had felt this pain before, much worse in the darkness, which I wanted to forget. I took comfort in the gentleness of his arms around me, his whisperings in my ear, and the warmth of his breath against my neck time and time again throughout the night.

I didn't want those horrid feelings; his body against mine, that friction, my heart racing, my breath catching, my head filling with that mind piercing something. But it was all there, a hundred times better than perfection, and I lived for it all, thrived on every moment. I found in that time a concept I'd long sought to complete and understand.

Life is like falling; no control, but no regrets.

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_What do you think? Any good? _


	2. Naruto

_In case it wasn't totally clear, the first chapter was in Sasuke's point of view. This one is from Naru's._

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**Falling**

My sensei once said _life is like falling _in a little speech. He was just making excuses for his constant lateness, but I took his words to heart. He was wise beyond his years, despite his often funny appearance and childish behaviour.

I didn't know what it meant, life is like falling, but I liked the idea, as far as I understood it. I often wondered about it, what it _really_ meant, if anyone besides me thought it was true.

I wondered if my only friend could apply it to his life. Raven haired, angry, quiet, he didn't seem the kind of person to do deep thinking. He was insanely intelligent, but I feared he only had a few things on his mind. Power. Revenge.

I didn't like the fact that he hated emotions. I felt like he thought he could ignore them and they'd go away. Ignoring an emotion was like ignoring a forest fire; pretend it isn't there long enough, and it will burn out of control. He'd turned his back to that fire long ago, and I knew one day he'd be burned and I'd feel nothing but pity.

He regarded me with curiosity at most times; contempt at others. His curiosity consisted of a sort of quiet, guarded wonderment, and it usually only became apparent to me in a silent form of _what the hell did you do __**this**__ time?_

I could care less about whether or not he disapproved of anything I did; at least, that's what I always told him. That was what I was all about; doing what I enjoyed because it was me, and I always wanted to be known for being _me_, not some fake person.

He hid behind pride and finesse, feigning un-interest in those around him, denying his feelings and denying others their feelings for him. I suppose that all people have their own methods of coping with the world; that just happened to be his way.

I couldn't outright tell him that his 'coping' was stupid; that would be stupid of me. Many people seem to think that that is exactly what I am—stupid—and he happens to sometimes seem like he believes it, too.

Call it what you will, stupidity or whatever, but I think you should be obligated to speak your mind, which is what I always do, regardless of who you are. I've spoken my mind to everyone: to _him_, to my 'friends', the lowly people I've fought and won against, even my sensei.

I know so many people, it amazes me sometimes. For example, the highest ranking person in the village thinks of me as her little brother or son or something like that. Even with a connection like this, I still find myself sitting on that stool in that ramen shop, next to him, my friend, almost every single night.

He isn't the most pleasant of all people, and I don't understand him all the time. I don't even really understand him a little of the time, actually. He cares too little for himself for me to really understand him. He cared for his power, his revenge, his utter control, but nothing else that I knew.

At the very least, this is what I thought for the longest time. Unfeeling and cynical, and he was the only one to stand for me. He endured a shower of steel death for me, and I was amazed. And then angry, fearful, upset, vengeful. He died for me and then he came to life. I had always watched him and now I knew I could never stop.

I thought he feared death and couldn't bare his fear; I was his reason for his dying, I was his fear. He avoided me and I followed him. He grew angry with me and fought and I was confused and defended myself, but didn't really fight back.

And then he changed. He acknowledged me, fought for me again. He praised me as only he could with this, and he protected me, almost to the death. I wouldn't let him. I stopped him and demanded why. He ignored me, but I wouldn't leave this as it. I didn't accept any answer but the truth, and I couldn't accept the truth of what he said: _It doesn't matter if I live or die._

He grew bitter once again, and I couldn't be sure if I liked this. He no longer was self-sacrificing, but he was sacrificing himself to what I felt was useless. Basing your entire life around revenge, that was nothing but a senseless waste, something I thought was stupid beyond reason. To this senseless waste is where I finally lost him.

We fought, and when we fought this time, it was unlike anything before. We laid everything down, every thought, every emotion; almost every emotion. Some were lost in their translation, taken the wrong way, inspiring us to new heights of confusion, to the desperate need to hurt the other before we were hurt ourselves.

He dealt the final blow, leaving me empty and alone in the rain. To who felt emptier, more alone, I didn't know.

Despite this, or maybe because of this, I bulled on. I learned to manage them, my emptiness and loneliness, as I had done before I had really grown to know him, care for him. I maintained the emotions I had, learned the words that said what they really were. Eventually, I knew I'd see him, eventually, I knew I would explain everything to him.

I felt shock when I saw him again. Shaken, weak with fatigue, eyes dead now that the fire once in them was gone. He had no more purpose, I saw that in the corpse by his feet. _Why?_ I asked. _Why do I pity you?_

I remembered why when the shock filled his eyes. It was the fire, emotions; he'd turned from them long ago. Now he was burned, burned because he didn't know anything. He didn't need hate, he had no more need for revenge, he'd fullfulled everything to these, the only emotions he'd let in. Now he was helpless and didn't know what to do.

He agreed with me then, quiet and uncertain, agreed to himself being pitiful. I couldn't stand his docile agreement, him not fighting the idea. That fight made him who he was, it always had. I pulled him to me, wondering at how he became _this_, fearing his future, feeling the emotion which had once confused me.

I forced him to come with me, to return to our home, and I found it took little to make him agree. It seemed to me that he wanted to be near me, and I would remember that for a long time to come.

I was beyond happy to finally return with him; I was proud beyond words to hold onto him and say to people that I had finally brought him back, as I'd said I would for years. He tacitly allowed me to, slowly gathering back the shreds of _him_ which had fled when he'd left.

Emotions still confused him, especially that one, the one that had confused the two of us before he'd left. I told him good night, once. There wasn't very much special about it, but he smiled at me and I could see it on his face and in his eyes; he felt it and didn't know what it was, that one emotion. And I needed him to realize what it was. I approached him, knelt by him, and whispered the words, _I love you_.

_Don't say that_, he told me, and he shook his head, refusing to accept my words. In puzzlement, I pushed him down, held him down. _I love you_.

He froze in confused terror and I had to make him know what I meant. I was carried away in the moment, I regretted the ferocity of my movements, the ones that scared him and made him beg me to stop. He was scared; I hadn't known that these things scared him. I hadn't known that anything scared him, much less this. I stopped and held him, hands on his sides, lips on his neck, until he calmed. I lost myself in him, in the pure pleasure that was his body, and I whispered in his ear to quell any of his still-present fears.

He shook quietly at the end of the beginning, almost as though sobbing, but that wasn't like him; he could never cry, and never over this. I held him to my bare self, and he clutched back, trembling and weak. Never before had he seemed more weak; ever since I had brought him back, that is what he'd seemed to be to me.

I whispered in his ear again, trying to decipher his thoughts, understand his fears, but I couldn't.

_I understand it now,_ he'd finally whispered back to me. _Life is like falling; no control, but no regrets. _

I held him again, took him like before, but there was no fear. He didn't regret, he didn't have any control, he fell.

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_Reviews please!_


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